I occasionally get asked for reading recommendations by new or aspiring PMs. This is a bit like asking for books on art, hoping to become an artist: while it helps to know a few principles, practice will get you much farther. The situations and challenges you face as a PM are so diverse, the right decisions end up being driven much more by instinct and experience than application of principle.

That said, there are two categories of books (and articles) I've found useful:

Fundamentals: frameworks and checklists that demystify the basics of product management, and provide reference points when you're stuck.

Mind expanders: books that make you think about the world in a different way, expand your perception of what's possible, or connect your thoughts about product development to other disciplines, like Psychology.

Over the years I've collected a list of these, and it's about time that I post it here. There are lots of Product Management reading lists out there. This is not intended to be an exhaustive collection of resources; it's just the bits and pieces that had the most impact on me.

Practice

Reading can only get you so far. Mastery requires practice. Find a way to apply these skills: if you're starting out as a PM, pick an area and focus on improvement. If you're trying to make the leap, start a project where you can put some of these skills to work. This isn't just the best way to master Product Management, it's also the way potential employers will evaluate you.

I've been reading a lot about World War II recently. The most surprising thing,
for me, is how different the Allied experience was from the pop culture fairy
tale.

As Americans, we grow up learning about Normandy, the Bulge, and the decline and
fall of Germany. But we rarely learn about the war in North Africa and the
invasion of Italy, and all the brutal mistakes and hardship America went through
as we learned how to wage effective war against a brutal enemy.

In the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower was so thoroughly routed by Rommel
that America faced the real possibility of being pushed out of Tunisia
altogether. A year later, the Allied invasion of Italy almost failed under
German counterattack. Between these moments, the Allies made many other mistakes
and suffered many minor defeats. Such is life in war.

And yet, history is written by the victors. Years later, having won the war,
these setbacks are a footnote, rarely spoken of and never taught. Eisenhower was
an American hero in 1945, but in 1943 that outcome was far from certain.

Running a business is nothing like going to war. But there is a parallel, I
think, in how we write our history books, and how we evaluate our leaders.
Facing adversity, we seek the fairy tale — gallant leaders, faultless,
leading companies to infinite victory in weeks' time against any odds. We forget
that struggle is part of the narrative.

I have had the great fortune to work for a handful of leaders who charge
willingly into the most challenging situations, who inspire in the face of doubt
and keep their teams grounded and humble about success. These leaders expect
hurdles on the path to victory, and accept the criticism and vilification they
receive from spectators on the sidelines.

I lost one of those leaders today, and I hope he will be remembered for the
progress he made toward victory, not the inevitable challenges along the way.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does
actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least
fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I wrote this essay in October of 2011. At the time, the emotions were too raw
for me to share it beyond close family. As I approach 30, I'm releasing it in
the hope that it's helpful to anyone going through this strange and bewildering
transition.

On August 28th, 2011 I celebrated my 28th birthday. There was not much fanfare.

Two months later, I find myself unable to sleep. I stare at the ceiling while my
mind races. I toss and turn during the night. I snooze my alarm until the last
possible second. When I'm not working, my mind is racing with questions, like:
What am I doing here? Am I on track? Are my life goals realistic? Does my
perception of my self match up with reality? Am I too ambitious? Am I working
hard enough? Too hard? I've begun to wonder: am I running out of time?

Start a family. Work hard, but for a stable number of hours. (Age 35+)

Today, I'm still clinging to an ambitious set of personal goals:

Become an expert engineer

Lead a startup to marketplace success

Live a healthy lifestyle and get fit

Earn financial freedom

Build a family

Travel

And yet, despite my best efforts, here's how "the plan" has actually played out:

Age 22-23: Worked my ass off for a failing startup, had no idea what I was
doing, learned a ton.

Age 24: Met a wonderful girl (and stupidly worried that it was way too early
for "the plan.")

Age 25-27: Started a company, worked my ass off, had no idea what I was doing,
learned a ton.

Age 28: Working my ass off for a startup that has real traction!

You could say I've wandered a bit. Still, I'm not that far off from where I
thought I'd be. So why is my subconscious torturing me at night? It turns out,
I'm learning a lot of scary things as I get older:

Planning for things doesn't make them happen.

Your body will deteriorate faster than you think.

Life doesn't wait for you.

The decisions you face get harder to make.

I find myself fighting these lessons, even as I begin to accept they are facts
of life. The rest of this essay is an attempt to make sense of these things.
These are deeply personal reflections. They may not apply to you, and I won't be
insulted if you stop reading right here. I tell these stories mostly as an act
of catharsis.

Planning for things doesn't make them happen

My life has taken a meandering path. Part of that is the pure randomness of
events. The rest, I'm beginning to realize, is because I do not know myself
nearly as well as I've always pretended. When my first startup failed, I had no
savings, and I took a corporate job instead of staying in the startup space. I
rationalized it as the only logical choice, and a temporary decision while I got
my feet below me. It took 2.5 years and acceptance into an accelerator to get me
out the door again. During that time, in my head, I was just biding my time
until it was the right moment to jump back into the startup world.

Years can pass while you wait for the right moment for something. In grade
school and college, I became too accustomed to being on a "track," knowing that
if I followed it dutifully and excelled at every juncture, things would work out
on their own. It took me 5 years of professional development to realize that
following the obvious path was leading me toward a successful but uninteresting
career. Quitting my job to start a startup was like ripping off a bandaid.
Painful (scary even!) but worth it. Despite the company not working out, I've
taken back control of my career progression, and I'm doing what I love.

Your body will deteriorate faster than you think

I graduated high school in 2001 a member of the varsity track and field team.
In college, I let go. By the time graduation rolled around, I had no exercise
routine at all, and from September of 2005 until November of 2010 I ran a
combined total of 10 miles. (That's five years!) When I got back on the
treadmill for the first time, running a single mile was so difficult that I had
to use the stationary bike for a month instead, until my circulatory system
could adapt to the elevated heart rate, and my knees to the constant pounding.

That experience was like a spiritual awakening. Instantly, exercise was a
priority for me. I realized that if I didn't push to get in shape right away
despite the tremendous difficulty, I might possibly reach a point where the pain
was too great and the slow progress too discouraging. How hard would things be
at 35, if they were this hard at 27?

Luckily I persisted, but it was my first glimpse at mortality. If I want to
throw a football with my kids or chase my grandchildren in the yard, I need to
invest in exercise every week for the rest of my life.

Life doesn't wait for you

On June 20th, 2007 I told a friend I'd be his wingman on a group date with his
new girlfriend and her friends. We went bowling at Jillian's, a Boston mainstay.
I bowled a 60, for which one of the girls teased me incessantly. Despite the
abuse, I asked her out and we've been dating since.

I wasn't ready for a long term relationship when I was 24. In my mind, I had
another 5 solid years of bachelordom and hard work before I'd even have to think
about settling down and making time for romantic dinners and movie nights.

I worried a lot about fucking up the plan. After all, I had read so much about
how family and startups don't mix, and how long nights at the office take their
toll on relationships. My advice: don't heed that shit, trust your heart. My
girlfriend has been the most stable, consistently supportive person in my life.

The decisions you face get harder to make

When my startup unwound early this year, my girlfriend was deciding on PhD
programs. (She's getting a Clinical Psychology degree.) Thinking it would be a
clean slate, something new and interesting, she picked a school in Chicago and
we agreed to move there together.

Two months later I got an email out of the blue from an entrepreneur whose blog
I've read extensively, someone I deeply respect. The email led to a call, which
led to a series of interviews and a job offer: in Palo Alto, California.
Amazingly, my girlfriend thought I should do it, and I ultimately did. It was
the hardest decision of my life.

I'm not sure if I made the right choice. I think about it all the time. But the
choice itself is not the point. More important is the weight the decision
carries. As you get older, decisions involve more tradeoffs. As I lie awake at
night, I worry about the even heavier tradeoffs you have to make when you're
choosing between your career and spending time with your wife and kids.

So am I running out of time?

Yes and no. Maybe. Sort of. According to my life plan, I have 5 more years of
hard work before it's time to settle down. That means I'm more than half done
with the "glory" phase of my life.

Life doesn't play out sequentially. I fear the effect of family on my freedom
and desire to work marathon hours. I'm afraid of competition from younger
startupers, unburdened by the complex aspects of later adult life. I worry that
once the personal burdens grow, my aspirations will become impossible.

And yet, despite my singular focus on my professional life while I was young,
my personal life advanced. When family comes along, I maintain hope that the
reverse will be true. Life is a balancing act. I may never achieve "the plan",
but in a sense I've let go of that goal. I have a better understanding of myself
and a more profound appreciation for the shortness of life. (As much as one can
at 28!) I haven't squashed the fear, but I'm not totally sure I want to do that.
Instead, I'm channeling it into my days. It gives me a drive, and purpose.

Thanks for reading.

Does this describe you? Have you had similar feelings or struggles? You can
reach me at @ptr or paul@rosania.org. I'd love to hear from you.

A company is the sum of hundreds of decisions made daily about product,
marketing, hiring, etc. The magnitude of each decision varies, but it's rare to
find one decision (or several) that is single-handedly responsible for your
business' success or failure. What matters is the average: on the whole, does
your business get more decisions right than wrong?

It's tempting to conclude that the best company is the one whose people have the
best natural intuition. These people, blessed with divine judgment, will carve
market-winning products directly out of stone, while their competitors misfire
and fall behind.

In such a scenario, people with below-average intuition must be ruthlessly
culled in order to maintain above-market performance. As an employee of this
company, each decision you make carries the weight of your future career on its
shoulders. (Better not fuck up!)

And yet, we all know intuition is fallible, mistakes inevitable. So how do you
chart success for your career?

One option is to be lucky. (If you're lucky, you can stop reading here.)

Another option is to embrace A/B testing. A/B testing directs the conversation
away from luck and intuition, and toward data-driven learning. In an A/B
testing culture, your intuition is not your most prized asset. Rather, your
value comes from your ability to brainstorm, define and execute experiments.
Instead of focusing on being right, and approaching decisions with dread, you
can focus on learning as much as possible by rapidly exploring different
solutions to the areas of your business and product you are working on.

One benefit of A/B testing is never making decisions that are quantitatively
poor. But there's a long term benefit as well: A/B testing focuses you and your
team on the process of learning and building organizational intuition. It
enables people to propose ideas that may sound silly or dumb without fear of
retribution. And it enables people to gracefully accept defeat when their ideas
are rejected by data. The company benefits greatly, as everyone iterates and
learns more quickly.

As an individual contributor, you are ultimately judged by your impact. If you
use your own judgment to make decisions, you will be graded on your intuition.
But if you focus on learning via testing, you will be graded not on intuition,
but by the velocity of your experimentation. Unless you're lucky, testing
affords you much more control of the outcome.

[...]
Growth engineering is about consistent small gains, with some big wins mixed in
for good effect. To achieve this is a matter of patience, discipline and a keen
(but flexible) understanding of your product and market. When you've achieved
product/market fit, you know why, and you have a stream of data to work with,
you're ready.